On the night that part-time model Kara Nichols disappeared, she was scurrying to put makeup on and get ready for a modeling appointment with a Denver photographer.

Kara Nichols

Nichols, 19, lived in a small Colorado Springs home with three men she was renting a room from. Two of the men, who were in their mid to late 20s and worked on road construction crews, were on a trip out of town. Tara told the youngest of her roommates that a girlfriend was going to pick her up for the modeling gig.

Minutes later he saw a dark sedan pulling away from the home and assumed that Kara’s ride had arrived.

That was on Oct. 9, 2012. Kara has not been seen since then. Investigators suspect someone posing as a photographer may have harmed her.

Her mother, Julia Nichols, who lives in Chicago, says her normally very social daughter, who had been calling her twice a week before she vanished, has not contacted her or any of her friends since that day.

“I try to cling to some hope that she is still alive. The more time that goes along the more I face the possibility that she is dead,” Nichols said. “It’s one of these things where you can’t believe it’s happening while its unfolding in front of you.”

Though ugly truths have surfaced since her daughter’s disappearance, Nichols recalls the bright, beautiful girl as she was when she lived at their home.

Kara grew up in a loving, middle class home. She has a brother who is two years older than her, and a sister two years younger.

Growing up, Kara always had a pet, whether it was a hamster, a cat or a dog.

Kara has a great sense of humor and was very talented.

Kara would draw elaborate sketches of models in beautiful gowns. As she got older she won several school and community art competitions. To build on her talent, her parents enrolled her in private art lessons.

The pretty young girl also had her trials, starting when she became a teenager. Her mother recalls a radical change in her daughter’s behavior that she believes could be linked to mental illness.

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.